A network includes a large number of network devices including switches, bridges, routers, gateways, etc. for communicating data. Each of these network devices needs to be configured properly in order to function correctly in a network environment. Particularly, each of the network devices has its own hardware and software that defines its functionality. Therefore, before the network devices can be deployed in the network and while they are deployed in a network, their configurations and states need to be checked to ensure they are in the correct settings.
In network devices, consistency checker (CC) utilities are implemented to validate software and hardware states/fields for network elements like Internet Protocol (IP) address, Media Access Control (MAC) address, interfaces, port aggregation configurations etc. CC utilities are useful to troubleshoot issues like failures and discrepancies in the traffic or hardware programming. These utilities are primarily used for initial debugging and are implemented separately for each type of network elements.